Community News (V10-I20)

Muslim doctors to open clinic in Dayton

DAYTON, OH—The number of uninsured Americans are rising by the day. Even those who have insurance has seen an increase in their premiums and cutbacks in the services. These trends make more than 43 million Americans vulnerable to not getting adequate health coverage. Amidst this depressing scenario a group of Muslims doctors in Dayton are offering a ray of hope by opening a free clinic.

The Dayton Mercy Society Muslim Clinic of Ohio will offer services to the uninsured and the under-insured. “This will be a primary care clinic and we have 15 primary care physicians who are credentialed and will be on staff. By treating the uninsured and providing preventive care, we hope to forestall a range of chronic illnesses,” said Dr.Ramzieh Azmeh, a member of the group.

When the clinic opened on May 1st there was standing room only capacity.

MedThink hires Syed Moinuddin

RALEIGH, NC–MedThink Communications, an innovator in medical communications, brand development, advertising and public relations, has hired two executives to serve the company’s growing client base in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry.

Syed Moinuddin has been hired as account director to support clients’ needs in advertising, promotion and brand development. A pharmacist with an MBA, Syed will draw upon his extensive knowledge of drugs and the pharmaceutical industry in order to provide a thorough analysis and strategic recommendations to clients, said Walt Clarke, partner at MedThink.

“Syed will complement our diverse pool of knowledge and expertise at MedThink and will enable us to better serve our pharmaceutical partners as existing clients and future clients,” said Clarke.

New Halal Poultry Plant in North Carolina

SILER CITY, NC—Chaudry Halal Meats have opened their brand new poultry processing plant in Siler City. According to the Chatham Journal this is North Carolina’s only USDA-inspected poultry processing plant for independent producers. The plant will process chicken, turkey, duck,geese, quail, and rabbit.

Chaudhry Halal Meats has been processing beef, goat, and lamb for over 10 years in Chatham County, so Abdul brings over a decade of processing experience to this new enterprise.

The Chatham County Center of North Carolina Cooperative Extension organized an Open House on April 2, 2008 to promote this new community resource.

Dr. Donna Carver, NCSU Extension Poultry Veterinarian, gave a presentation on Using Biosecurity Principles to Ensure a More Wholesome Product. Farmers and Growers’ Choice members Judy Lessler and Noah Ranells presented the new Grower Guidelines for Poultry and Fowl Processing and Paul Griswold, Weaver Street Market’s Fresh Food Merchandiser, discussed Weaver Street’s need for sourcing locally grown poultry.

Weaver Street Market is recruiting local poultry growers to supply their three retail stores. They anticipate needing up to 2,000 birds per week and they would like to find growers within a 50 mile radius of Chaudhry Halal’s plant in Siler City.

Muslim demand pushes goat raising

HILLSBORO, MO—Demand by Muslim and Hispanic communities in America has farmers raising more goats.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said Monday that the U.S. goat herd has grown from 2.5 million in 2002 to about 3 million today with more than 80 percent of the animals being raised for meat.

“It’s the No. 1 consumed meat in the world,” said Scott Hollis, a goat specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “It’s very popular, except here.”

Farmers say goats are relatively inexpensive to purchase and raise and don’t require a lot of land. That means small and weekend farmers find it an attractive niche market, the Post-Dispatch said. On the downside, goats are vulnerable to disease and major supermarket chains aren’t big buyers of goat meat.

George Atiyeh, 84, set up famed Mideast collection

George Atiyeh, a librarian and scholar who acquired and developed much of the Library of Congress’ renowned collection of publications concerning the Middle East, died April 21 of pneumonia at the Virginian nursing facility in suburban Fairfax County, Va. He was 84.

Atiyeh came to the Library of Congress in 1967 after an academic career that had taken him from his native Lebanon to the University of Chicago to Puerto Rico. He served as head of the Near East Section for more than 25 years, managing the library’s publications from and about the Arab world, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia. He helped amass a collection that has few parallels.

Fluent in five languages and familiar with a dozen others, Atiyeh was an international authority in Arabic studies and made frequent visits to the Middle East to acquire materials for the library. His network of sources among scholars, librarians, archivists and booksellers allowed him to acquire rare publications from Arab countries, as well as early Arabic-language newspapers published in the United States.

He also helped devise acquisition guidelines for the Library of Congress’ field office in Cairo, which has become a model for branches throughout the world.

Atiyeh directed or participated in several library programs on Middle Eastern culture, culminating in a 1995 conference on the history of printing in the Arab world, which featured scholars from around the globe.

In conjunction with the conference, presented by the library’s Center for the Book, Atiyeh compiled “The Book in the Islamic World,” a 305-page collection of scholarly essays about the history of books in Arab lands.

From 1991 until 1994, Atiyeh was acting chief of the African and Middle East Division at the library. He retired in 1996 after suffering a stroke.

George Nicholas Atiyeh was born in Amioun, Lebanon, and developed an early interest in the history, culture and literature of the Arab world from his father’s library.

He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from the American University of Beirut in 1948 and 1950. In 1954, he received a doctorate in the history of philosophy, with a subspecialty in ancient languages, from the University of Chicago. He was fluent in Arabic, English, German, French and Spanish.

After joining the Library of Congress in 1967, Atiyeh became a leading figure in Middle Eastern studies and served on a State Department commission on U.S.-Egyptian culture from 1975 to 1978. He served on a White House advisory committee on Islamic affairs in 1979.

He was also a member of the advisory council of Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, the advisory editorial board of the Middle East Journal and the advisory board of the London-based al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation.

Atiyeh wrote dozens of articles on Arabic philosophy, Christian-Muslim relations, intellectual history and bibliographic research. He was a member of the Middle East Studies Association and a founding member of the Middle East Librarians Association. In 1999, the librarians association named a student prize in his honor.

He was a member of Saints Peter and Paul Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church in Potomac, Md.

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